I am searching for advice/support/ or whatever because I do not know what to do or if I should quit worrying.
I have a son who is almost 16. He has always been an extremely sensitive child, hates being the butt of a joke, and very shy.
He just quit varsity football because according to him it is not fun (and he is/was a great player for the past five years!!). Literally, all his "friends" continue to play so he has also lost the social aspect of being on the team. He doesn't want them to know though that he doesn't want to play he wants to say he was sick and missed too many practices to play. All he does or wants to do is sit in his room and play his PS2 games or be with me running errands, etc. None of his friends call b/c obviously they don't think about him since they are all together at football and out of sight out of mind is obvious with boys this age. And my son is not about to pick up the phone to call them.
I just have to think something happened at practice but he demands nothing happened and the coaches have told me he was always out there doing a great job -- so I'm just left with him saying that he just doesn't enjoy playing anymore.
I just love him so much but yet I think it is so sad to see him sit at home by himself day after day and I don't want to lower his self esteem by asking him why he isn't out with his friends (since they never call him).
Any thoughts or words of wisdom? Is this normal -- will he grow out of it? As bad as it sounds I wish there was a definite problem that I could fix but this one just confuses me. I just don't want him to grow up with no social life and not be able to stand up for himself. The way it is now I see him at 30 still living at home unable to fend for himself.
